JOHN KERRY'S QUIET COLLAPSE


John Podhoretz
New York Post



April 27, 2004 -- THE conventional wisdom is that the presidential election will be close. It's a 50-50 country, so the CW goes, just as it was in the year 2000.
The problem is that the conventional wisdom hasn't taken a proper accounting of John Kerry. Here's the truth that Democrats don't want to admit and that Republicans are fearful of speaking openly because they don't want to jinx things:

Kerry is a terrible, terrible, terrible candidate.

It's not so much the policies he proposes, although they don't add up to all that much. The problem is Kerry himself. He no sooner opens his mouth than he sticks first one foot and then the other right in there.

Yesterday, Kerry went on "Good Morning America" to try and clear up a controversy about the Vietnam medals and ribbons he threw over a fence in 1971 as part of an anti-war protest to "give them back" to the U.S. Congress. Instead, he only made himself look worse.

Since 1984, Kerry has said he only threw ribbons over that fence (as if throwing ribbons away wasn't powerfully meaningful in itself). But ABC News dug up a TV interview Kerry gave to a Washington, D.C., station 33 years ago. In it, he said he "gave back the others" - by which he clearly meant he had thrown his own Bronze Star, Silver Star and three Purple Hearts over the fence.

In 1971, he wanted people to think he had thrown away his medals. In 1984 and ever since, he has wanted people to know he had kept his medals.



But Kerry's interviewer yesterday actually saw him on that day back in 1971: "Senator, I was there 33 years ago, and I saw you throw the medals over the fence," Charlie Gibson of "Good Morning America" said point-blank.

"No," Kerry said, "you didn't see me throw the, Charlie, Charlie, you are wrong. That's not what happened. I threw my ribbons across . . . After the ceremony was over, I had a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart given to me, one Purple Heart by a veteran in the V.A. in New York and the bronze star by an older veteran of World War II in Massachusetts. I threw them over because they asked me to."

ABC reporter Brian Ross uncovered the 33-year-old interview. But Kerry tried to blame the controversy on George W. Bush instead: "This is a controversy that the Republicans are pushing," he raged, "and this comes from a president and a Republican Party that can't even answer whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard. I'm not going to stand for it."

Kerry mentioned Bush's National Guard service not once, but twice, during his five minutes with Charlie Gibson. So now we have the Democratic candidate for president himself making the accusation that the president of the United States was a deserter.

You don't have to be a Bush fan to think this is spectacularly stupid. The issue isn't Bush or his campaign. The issue is Kerry and a series of statements he made on the record in the media dating back more than 30 years. Trying to change the topic to Bush's service simply smacks of cornered desperation.

And that is Kerry's great weakness as a candidate - a weakness that will be hard for him to overcome, because it appears to be a character trait. The man who said "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it" is a man filled with the conviction that he can talk himself out of a tough situation.

Sometimes, it's better just to be silent, take the hit and move on. But Kerry seems constitutionally incapable of doing that.

Kerry has been the presumptive Democratic nominee for two months now. Ask yourself: Aside from fund-raising success, has he had a good day? Has he come up with a winning soundbite? Has he made a policy proposal you've heard people talking about?

Bush has had about as bad a time as he could have had these past two months, and he's not only still standing, but doing better than he was a month ago. And why? Because when he takes center stage, as he did in the press conference last week, he usually helps himself.

Not so for Kerry. To put it mildly.

Yes, he has time, plenty of time, six months' worth of time. Kerry will surely get better, but that's only because he can't get much worse.

Here's the conventional wisdom: The margin on Election Day will be razor-thin because only 7 percent of the electorate hasn't made up its mind yet whom to support. So the entire campaign will be a fight over that 7 percent, and the whole business will come down to a few battleground states - Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Mexico - where polling now suggests the race is neck-and-neck.

Every piece of information you've just read is true. But there's a strong possibility the conventional wisdom is wildly wrong.

Events over the past week suggest that Bush may win a substantial victory in November, and for this reason alone: Kerry's performance may seriously depress Democratic turnout. Or drive Democrats to vote for Ralph Nader, just as George Bush the Elder's performance in 1992 drove millions of Republicans to vote for Ross Perot.

Guys, you should have gone with John Edwards.

E-mail: podhoretz@nypost.com

Here again we see how weak a candidate Kerry is. While some suggest that Kerry moved to the left to win in the primary, I suggest he was more comfortable there then more to the center of left. I think we are begining to see evidence of this, especially with the medals flap. Do check out the Winter Soldier site. Kerry's testimony before the Senate Committee is posted there. - Mark